UN chief at Gaza crossing urges end to ‘nightmare’ of war

UN chief Antonio Guterres, on a visit to the doorstep of Gaza yesterday, appealed for a ceasefire to allow in more aid, saying the world has “seen enough” horrors in the Israel-Hamas war.
As Israeli forces pressed on with a multi-day raid on the territory’s biggest hospital, Palestinian officials reported 19 deaths at an aid distribution point on the outskirts of Gaza City.
Gaza’s Hamas authorities said at least 19 people were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli “tank fire and shells” as they were waiting for desperately needed supplies.
The Israeli army denied it had fired on the crowd. “Preliminary findings have determined that there was no aerial strike against the convoy, nor were there incidents found of (Israeli) forces firing at the people at the aid convoy,” it said.
Nearly six months of fighting, triggered by Hamas’ October first week storming of southern Israel, have led to dire humanitarian conditions in the besieged territory.
“Palestinians in Gaza — children, women, men — remain stuck in a non-stop nightmare,” Guterres said at the Egyptian side of Rafah border crossing with Gaza, the main entry point for aid.
Most of the territory’s 2.4mn people have sought refuge on the Gaza side of Rafah, where Israel has vowed to send in ground troops in its war against Hamas.
“I carry the voices of the vast majority of the world who have seen enough,” Guterres said, deploring “communities obliterated, homes demolished, entire families and generations wiped out”.
HOSPITAL RAID
He said “nothing justifies” the October first week storming or the “collective punishment” of Palestinians, and asked Israel to commit to “total, unfettered access for humanitarian goods throughout Gaza”.
“A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates — the long shadow of starvation on the other” were “a moral outrage”, Guterres said.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded on social media platform X, saying that the UN under Guterres had become an “anti-Israeli body.”
On the sixth day of Israel’s operation in and around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital complex, the army’s Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman vowed to keep on until “the last fighter is in our hands, alive or dead”.
Gaza City resident Mohamed, 59, who lives a short walk from Al-Shifa, said he had seen “many bodies” in the streets, buildings on fire and tanks blocking the roads.
The army has said more than 170 fighters have been killed during the “precise” operation targeting senior Hamas operatives it alleges have been using the hospital as a base.
Hamas has repeatedly denied its fighters were operating from Al-Shifa, already raided by Israeli troops in November.
The army said the current operation avoided harm to civilians or medical personnel, but the UN humanitarian office OCHA said “health workers have been among those reported arrested and detained”.
The Israeli government is under growing international pressure to ease its bombardment and ground offensive, which the Gaza health ministry says has killed at least 32,142 people, most of them women and children.
Israel has vowed to destroy the fighters.
‘NOTHING TO EAT’
Despite warnings that a Rafah operation would cause mass civilian casualties, Israeli officials said the military would press ahead with a threatened assault on the city, arguing it was necessary to eliminate Hamas.
“If we need to, we will do it alone”, without US support, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after a Friday meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was on a regional tour to push for a truce.
Large parts of the territory have been reduced to rubble and the World Food Programme (WFP) has said Gazans were already “starving to death”, with famine projected by May in northern Gaza without urgent intervention.
In Gaza City, in the north, Belal Hzilah said his nephew was among those killed at the aid distribution point as he was waiting to collect food for his two-month-old baby and other relatives. “They have nothing to eat,” Hzilah said. “He went to the Kuwait roundabout to get flour and food... He lost his life for nothing.”
Israel’s staunchest ally the US, which provides it with billions of dollars in military aid, has become increasingly vocal about the war’s impact on civilians.
On Friday, Washington failed to pass a UN Security Council resolution mentioning an “immediate ceasefire as part of a hostage deal”.
Russia and China, which vetoed the US text, said it was too soft on Israel. Diplomatic sources said another draft was expected to be put to a vote tomorrow.